


Clotho

by rileyriley



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fate & Destiny, Gun Violence, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rileyriley/pseuds/rileyriley
Summary: The first time she sees they-who-will-become, she had traded some time in a droid for some plus so she could make sure they got out of the city. They’re pale and monochrome, nothing like what they will become to survive.The first time Party Poison meets Jet Star, he’s lying on his back after a firefight gone south.





	Clotho

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hengilas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hengilas/gifts).



> happy unbirthday / merry holidays/ whatever here take it [kobrakid](http://kobrakid.tumblr.com/) i hope u like it even though you're the one who came up with the idea
> 
> pansy is actually from an old old [ask blog](http://askpoison.tumblr.com/post/9772305086/but-i-prefer-to-use-my-hands) that has some of the best characterization i have ever seen & aspire to capture in my own writing

The first time she sees they-who-will-become, she had traded some time in a droid for some plus so she could make sure they got out of the city. They’re pale and monochrome, nothing like what they will become to survive.

The second time she sees them, annoyingly, is only a few days later. She dresses as a crow and dances and caws to draw the attention of some shitty teens, who discover the dehydrated city boys baking under the shade of a Joshua tree. She may hold the pen of fate in her hands, but she’d rather not have to do anything too exhausting to keep the boys alive.

Sometimes she flies over the tent cities in the midday lull just to see the colors mixing and talking. There haven’t been any tugs for her to go correct someone falling out of step, so she hasn’t seen the boys-who-will-become in months. Their adaptation to desert life would be relieving if she wasn’t the one writing down their histories. She knows it will happen. She avoids the bustling market, and instead finds the homes of those with no one to bring their mask to her. She’s not so cruel to abandon someone with belief.

At the end of the street, if the dirt path through the tent city could be called that, are two boys sharing a meal. They’re desert-tan, red on their forehead and nose. They-who-will-become-Party-Poison has a bruise on their cheek, and a boy with black hair, who will also become, comes to join them. He hands They-Who-Will-Become a water bottle, and they press it to their cheek. All three still are too dark, still city-stained, but the royal blues, canary yellows, and fire reds peeking through the black show that they are becoming.

 

The first time Party Poison meets Jet Star, he’s lying on his back after a firefight gone south.

“What the fuck, man”, says the man Poison will find out is Jet Star. “I thought I lost you.”

Jet Star crowds his vision, blocking out the cotton-candy clouds and too blue sky. “Who are you?” Poison croaks.

“Someone passing by while you were getting your ass kicked.”

Poison tries to sit up but moving sets his side on fire. He lets out a whine like a kicked dog.

“Careful!” Says the man, ”You took a nasty shot, but their phasers must have been almost empty. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

“Where’s Mi--uh--Kobra Kid?” Poison sucks in a breath as Jet helps him sit up slowly.

He grins. “Doing better than you. He’s already awake, he’s by your car.”

When Poison finally ambles to the Trans-Am, Kobra is sitting in the shade of it against the back tire, and Ghoul is putting his pack away in the trunk, looking sheepish. He slowly sets himself in the back seat, wincing the whole way down. “Where were you going? We can give you a lift to the nearest outpost. It’s the least we could do.”

“No, thanks,” Jet Star says. “I’m not far from where I was headed.”

 

The second time they meet Jet Star is when they finally find out his name. He even managed to show up the shootout with some Dracs before anyone was hurt.

Afterward, the three crowd him.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that!”

“Just - just practice. I grew up out here--”

“Holy shit and when you punched that Drac it was like - _BAM_! Down!”

“It was me or him--”

“Can we help you with anything now? This is, fuck, the second time you’ve helped us, now, seriously dude, can we at least know your tag?”

“I’m - Jet Star.” He says like he has to remember who he was.

“Jet Star,” Says Party-Poison-with-black-hair, “I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

 

She perches on her shrine often, just to look down over who comes to see her. Most people come to pray for the recovery of sickness, some come to deliver masks still with tear tracks down their cheeks, and fewer come to just sit and remember.

“O, Phoenix Witch,” incants one girl as she kneels, holding a mask up to the mailbox. “Please take this offering and lead Ray Gun Jones into peace in the afterlife. He died today in battle with SCARECROW. We will remember him always. Blessed be the Phoenix Witch.”

The two people behind her repeat the blessing, and they cry and then leave. She hates it when they bring rituals from the city to her shrine. She is wild and untamed, not manufactured and polished.

Still, she opens the mailbox and welcomes the boy out. He’s scared, as they all are, and takes her hand as she leads him to the horizon.

 

The third time Party Poison sees Jet Star, he’s marching to the other side of the encampment with a hardened look on his face. Poison calls out to him, but Jet keeps barreling down the streets.

Later, on the radio, Doctor Death Defying recounts the shake-up in the Zone Two Marketplace this afternoon, with fourteen dracs dead and only two zone rats down. Injuries were minimal too, so if anyone sees a bush of brown hair with a flag jacket and a deadeye shot, know you’re in for some fireworks, so sit back and enjoy the show.

 

The fourth time is more or less a repeat of the first.

“What the fuck,” Party Poison says as soon as he opens his eyes to a deja vu view.

Jet Star helps him sit up, which is easier than before. He’s not entirely sure what got hit this time, but his head is pounding and he feels like he’s floating. “You’ve got the worst luck on the planet, dude.”

“Yeah, thanks,” because he knows he gets in too many fights. Exterminators don’t get deployed often, but apparently wanting better for the citizens in and around Battery City gets you a big red target on your back.

Well, it could be the red hair, too. Kobra’s got a bright red fight-me jacket, and Ghoul’s dolled up in caution tape like the world’s worst sniper. They’re not trying to hide out here, not when they have their freedom.

“Thanks for watching our backs,” Poison says, then starts yelling towards Fun Ghoul, “Since the person who’s literal job is to watch us can’t, apparently, see for shit.”

“Fuck you,” Ghoul shouts back, “That man’s not human. Who the fuck survives two lightning bolts to the head?”

“He must have bones of steel,” adds Kobra, “it was like punching Superman.”

Jet Star sighs. “Do you want a third?”

Poison looks back at Jet Star with confusion. “I don’t want to take you from anything--”

“You’re not, don’t worry.” Jet Star shrugs. “I’m not running with anyone, there’s no secret revenge-seeking crew who's gonna come save me from some kidnapping zone rats.”

“Way to make sure I keep my gun under my pillow tonight,” says Fun Ghoul. Jet Star smiles at him.

“If you want to,” says Poison, “we’ve got the room.”

Kobra Kid nods. “You can teach us some of your moves.”

 

And then, they no longer are _becoming_. They _are_.

 

Poison laughs as he tears down the EXTERMINATE poster. “It doesn’t even look like me!” He holds it next to his face and tries to make the same expression. “How’s anyone supposed to find me like this?”

Kobra takes his down and carefully inspects it, before folding it neatly and putting it in his pocket. “I dunno, I might have to find new frames, now.”

Ghoul tears his down and crumples it into a ball. “You’re shit at being on the run, Poison, who wants to get caught?” He throws the paper ball at Poison and it bounces off his shoulder.

“I don't know,” Jet says as he stares up at his poster. “I think we’ll all be fine.”

The door jingles as the girl comes out of the Dead Pegasus Store with two candy bars in her hand and a bag of very important things that a seven-year-old absolutely needs. “Alright! I’m all set!” She sings, and everyone piles into the car.

At the diner, Ghoul and the girl are coloring at one table, Kobra is tinkering with the Power Glove at another. Poison and Jet are in the bed-nest, and Poison whispers all his plans to Jet.

“I want to fight back, to help others get free, but the ultimate fuck-you is survival out here, isn’t it? Just by going on living, we’re fucking up their plans. We don’t have to do anything and they’re going crazy.”

Jet hums in agreement. He knows Poison works through his ideas best when he has a warm wall to talk at.

“I don’t think I can do that, though, that’s not - it feels like doing nothing, anyway. I can’t do that. I can’t be nothing like that.”

“You’re not nothing,” mumbles Jet instinctively.

“I know I’m not,” is the practiced reply, “but now with having her stay with us, it’s making me rethink everything I thought I wanted.”

“Settling down?” Jet chuckles. “You know Doctor D only asked us to take care of her because we don’t just sit back and do the bare minimum. She needs to learn to survive out here, too.”

“I know, but --” Poison huffs out another sigh. “You’re the only one of us who grew up out here, okay? It’s not like I have anything to look back on.”

Jet pushes some of Poison’s hair out of his face and lets his fingers trace down Poison’s cheek. “I think you’re doing just fine.”

Poison leans into Jet’s hand. “I hope so,” he says as he curls up into Jet’s broad chest.

 

The day they steal the motorcycle out from under SCARECROW’s nose, Poison pushes Jet back into the diner with fuck-me eyes while Kobra cheers on Ghoul doing donuts in the sand. Poison leans over a table and pulls Jet closer, closer, _closer_.

 

Jet, however, is also not stupid. When two people play chicken with absolutely zero intent on losing, they will eventually crash. He hears Poison and Ghoul tearing at each other in their makeshift garage. He’s heard Ghoul and Kobra’s gasps from the roof of the diner on warm, clear nights under the stars.

Kobra is always the one to comfort Poison when he has nightmares. He and Ghoul fix up the car and bike together. Kobra comes to him when he needs to spar to work out all his pent-up energy.

They’re family, and they’re more.

Ghoul makes sure the girl keeps up on her reading and writing, and how to defuse a bomb. Kobra teaches her how to hack electronics so you don’t get zapped, and how to throw a punch. Poison tells her the history of the before-world while they color, and how to find shade and water in the desert. Jet teaches her how to tie a tourniquet, triage the wounded, and load a gun.

Jet is standing over Poison, helping him wash out the fresh dye and trying to discern if the red in the water is more dye that needs washing out or the rusty pipes casting a red hue. Party Poison, of course, keeps his mouth running.

“I can’t believe those kids at Tommy Chow Mein’s, oh my _god_ ,” he pauses only to spit some water out of his mouth, “Like, sure he has the best quality dye if we can’t find any at the strip in Five, but Cherri Cola and Show Pony need to find a new drop. I don’t think I’ve ever gone in there where he didn’t try to sell the car to the next person who walked in.”

“Well having a shootout in the middle of his store isn’t exactly a good look.” Jet washes a hand over the hair at the back of Poison’s neck again, “Pretty sure the only reason we’re all still allowed in there is because the Doc threatened him personally.”

Poison moves out from under the spray to start wringing out his hair and sighs. “He must owe his life to them three times over or something for that sort of bullshit.”

“Not snitching could also just mean loyalty.” Jet turns the water off and reaches for a towel before Poison can shake out his hair like a wet dog.

The radio crackles from interference at the end of a song. “Well, I’ve got some hot off the press news for all you tumbleweeds out there,” glides Doctor D, “we’ve got confirmed _and_ unconfirmed reports of Fun Ghoul getting caught in a Mexican Standoff that went white-hot in the outer rim of Zone Six. All combatants confirmed dead by their guns left to dust.  A memorial service will begin at high noon tomorrow in the Zone Three Puebla de Los Muertos, and his sniper Pansy will be auctioned off at three, with bidding starting at two cans of gas and a real apple.”

Party Poison laughs and whips his hair back, sending an arc of red drops across the kitchen. So much for the towel protecting anything.  “Hey Ghoul, you hear that?” He yelled toward the diner door, “The Doctor is tired of hoarding your shit!”

There’s a crash of electronic and metal parts, followed by swearing. “Yeah, yeah,” calls back Fun Ghoul, “I fuckin’ heard. I told him just another week! I’m not fuckin’ made of saltpeter!”

“You’re saltpeter,” Poison laughs. The water dripping down his temple leave a light stain on his skin, and Jet uses the towel now around Poison’s shoulders to wipe it off.

“You think they’ll ever catch on to the code?” Jet asks.

“That what? ‘Tumbleweed’ means ‘hey, here’s a story I just made up to annoy the people I’ve entrusted to keep the savior of humankind safe?’” Poison shrugs. “I don’t know. Half the zones don’t. Watch them all decide on some building to have always been Pueblo de Los Muertos and hold some eulogies.”

Now that Ghoul is on house arrest until he can stage his grand resurrection, Jet bikes to WKIL to grab the rifle. He lets his hair out as he rides, black feathers drifting in the wind behind him.

“Long time no see, amigo,” Doctor Death Defying says from his chair outside the station once the bike is parked.

“I was here two weeks ago.”

“No, _you_ weren’t.”

 

Ghoul suddenly wants to do every chore outside the diner now that he’s not allowed. Even things that he would normally try to pawn off on Kobra so he could stay in and work on his chemistry set some more. Still, at least the girl is getting a crash course in ammonia mixing and timer wiring.

“Why do fertilizer bags have to be so goddamn heavy?” Poison whines.

“I don’t know,” Kobra says equally tired, “so all gardens and plants can be ninety-eight percent explosive?”

Poison laughs at that. “Wish it could have been just a couple can like last time we got sent out.”

“Just a couple cans? Is that why you and Jet took three hours to get back?”

Poison, for his part, manages not to go as red as his hair. “Hey! We were trying to find a specific can in an entire _store of cans_!”

Kobra just rolls his eyes and holds up two cans of spray paint. “Ready to go?”

Poison’s smile splits wide and bright across his face. He takes the blue can and starts shaking it up. “Fuck, yeah. Let’s go.”

Rolling up to the diner at dusk, the girl comes running up to the car with green and yellow dye in her hair and on her pants. “You’re back, you’re back!” She yells, and Kobra lifts her up in a twirling hug.

“Did you get enough?” asks Ghoul.

The girl reaches over to give Poison a hug too, which he reciprocates. “We were bottoming out on every dune, dude, if this isn’t enough you go on the next scavenge.”

Ghoul scoffs, running a hand through his hair. “I fuckin’ wish.”

Jet drives up with the bike, pack full of food and supplies, and rifle case on his back. Kobra lets the girl down so she can run over to Jet and try to find any candy before he can shoo her away because there’s no dessert before dinner. She runs off laughing and screaming with a molasses cookie in hand.

Ghoul nearly dances his way over to Jet. “Pansy, my darling, I’ve missed you!” He sing-songs. Jet laughs as he shoulders off the converted guitar case. Ghoul takes it and starts to caress the curves of the case. “Did anyone hurt you? Did you have a safe ride back to me?”

“A thank you would be nice.” Jet shakes his hat-hair out. A black feather falls behind him.

“Shh, shh, shh, don’t listen to him. He doesn’t understand what we have.” Ghoul takes Pansy inside to check over everything. Make sure there’s been no bugs or plants to get them captured or alterations to jam the barrel.

Poison lets out a long groan and flops against the car. “Now we gotta move the bags again.”

“Use your legs,” says Jet as he opens the back of the car.

Kobra laughs. “That’s what she said.”

 

Jet volunteers for Girl Duty today, more out of concern that a kid probably shouldn’t be inhaling so much ammonia. She’s quiet, staring out the window as they drive through the sand. Her action figures sit in the footwell, untouched.

“Will I ever get to see my mom?”

It was only a matter of time until this came up. The four of them have had many late night whisper arguments over how to handle it; if they should wait until she asks; if they should tell her everything first. Jet keeps his eyes on the road and his foot on the gas.

The afternoon sun beats down on the mailbox, making it hot to the touch.

“You can talk to her here,” Jet Star says, “any letter you put here will always find their target.”

The girl’s fingers trace the bumpy red Love on the front of the mailbox, then over the circle of the eye. “Is she dead?”

The old memory, dusk-blue tinted, of a screaming newborn and a simple, yellow mask quietly slipped into the box mark the start of the girl’s journey in the desert.

“No. Not as long as you remember her.”

“I don’t remember her at all,” the girl whines. “Why did she leave me? Why won’t anyone explain anything to me?”

Jet sighs and goes back to the car for a pencil and paper. “If you ask her, maybe she’ll reply.”

“How can she do that if she’s dead,” spits the girl, crossing her arms.

Jet feels like he’s towering over her, like a bird on a telephone pole. He kneels down at her level. “I promise, with my whole heart and on perjury of Kobra’s Vend-A-Hack, if you write her a letter it will find her.”

The girl takes the paper and starts writing furiously.

 

The Trans Am flies down Route Guano, black Pantera on their heels. Jet and Kobra climb out of the window, trying to shoot at the dracs or pop a tire before crawling back in.

Ghoul breathes in and out slowly. The Trans Am passes the marker and spins around, kicking up sand and dust. Breathe in. The Pantera screeches to a halt and Dracs pour out, guns waving. Breathe out. As they stand, they fall with a pop and a flash.

The desert is silent around the empty car. Poison is the first out of the Trans Am, yellow gun raised and ready for any survivors. When they get close, Poison gives Ghoul the all-clear and everyone starts cheering.

They loot the car: new guns to sell, a box full of charges, two medkits and a three-fourths tank of fresh gas. They stuff the car full of fertilizer bombs and run to the rock outcropping where Ghoul had hidden to watch the fireworks and green and yellow dyed smoke fill the sky.

“I’m back, motherfuckers!” Fun Ghoul yells, throwing an empty beer bottle to the bubble city on the horizon.

 

Things continue as they were: spiteful survival and the occasional brush with consequence. Jet keeps everyone patched up and alive. Doctor Death Defying keeps up with the news. Korse kidnaps Party Poison when they’re on a solo run, and it’s Jet who kicks down the hotel door first to save them. They make a life.

Everything goes to shit when the Girl is taken, though.

Neither side had ever been dumb enough to believe a parlay, and lead bullet casings are few and far between. There’s only so many times they can pick through the same scrap heap. When it comes to a high noon standoff, the fastest gun in the zones loses. Jet shakes Ghoul awake. Not even Kobra asks why they’re still alive.

A call goes out for the best and bravest: infiltrate the city and get back their savior. Kick BLI where it hurts and get the hell out of dodge. Who wants to be a hero for the ages?

It goes unanswered.

“Are you fucking hearing this, Jet?” Fun Ghoul has been yelling for the past ten minutes of the argument. “You’re agreeing with him?”

“What other choice do we have?” Party Poison says again. “We can’t leave her in there, we don’t know what they’ll do to her. Death could be the nicest thing they do to her.”

“Death?!” Screeches Fun Ghoul. “She’s _eight_!”

Kobra Kid rubs his eyes and continues avoiding eye contact with everyone. His fingers brush over the lines of the Power Glove. “Poison’s right.”

Fun Ghoul just gives Kobra Kid the most exaggerated look of disbelief he can muster. “You--”

“Just because no one else wants to make the sacrifice doesn’t mean we get to skip on it, too.” Kobra Kid looks up at Fun Ghoul. “She was under our care, don’t you feel a little responsible?”

Fun Ghoul crosses his arms and frowns. Once the fog of a light concussion had passed and he could think straight, he had cried and recounted every single detail over and over, trying to figure out where they went wrong, where they had all miscalculated to have this happen. The only thing that had knocked him out of his obsessive stupor was when Party Poison presented his plan to get the girl out. Then, he had just flown straight into anger.

“This is what we have to do,” says Jet Star.

Fun Ghoul sighs and sits at the table, yielding.

 

WKIL has gone dark, broadcasting only the old national anthem on repeat. The Killjoys and the WKIL radio team are all packed into the diner trying to get a last night’s sleep. It’s just a hotbox full of hot bodies counting down their death. Poison traces shapes on Jet’s arm.

“I love you,” whispers Party Poison. Jet Star knows that Poison can tell he’s not asleep. Poison doesn’t seem disappointed by the silence. “My real name is Gerard.”

That gets Jet Star to open his eyes. “No, it’s not. You’re Party Poison.”

Party Poison frowns. “No, before, back in--”

Jet Star puts his hand over Poison’s circling fingers. “Before doesn’t matter. Out here, everyone just knows Party Poison. That’s who matters.” That’s who will be remembered.

Poison tries to hold Jet’s gaze but soon gives up. Jet shuffles and pulls up a black feather, holding out to Poison. “Here, hold on to this. Call it a good luck charm.”

Poison takes it and slowly draws his finger along the iridescent blue edge. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

“Give me your mask,” he says, “that will be good luck enough.”

The time to set things in motion comes too early. Everyone’s just running on adrenaline and fumes. There’s hardly a word said as everyone piles into their respective cars. There are no goodbyes, just a gruff, “Radio’s on, see you soon.”

Ghoul’s leather glove creaks in the back of the car. He misses his rifle, but Pansy’s clip only holds four heavy bullets and his ray gun has a five-hour battery. Kobra is twitchy, flinching at every bullet as they approach the tunnel gate. Jet and Poison look straight ahead to the looming building.

They become robotic: making decisions without thought, shooting everything in their way. Finding her is too easy and they almost let themselves accept their luck. It can be just this.

They’re in the lobby when Kobra turns around and shouts _Korse_! Poison is surprised at his own disbelief. Didn’t they prepare for the worst? But it doesn’t matter because they already radioed in for pickup and they don’t need their lives anymore, all they need is some time.

Kobra is shot in the leg, and Jet shakes him up. Jet runs over to Ghoul to check out a headshot, but it was only a graze leaves him only with a few singed hairs and more determination. It feels like they’ve walked into the front lobby ambush that missed them earlier. But they’ve come out of worse unscathed, right? The burning welt on Poison’s thigh says no, they haven’t.

Jet can’t get to Poison in time. The WKIL van screeches to a halt just outside, and the girl is all that matters, now, not _heart_ and _feelings_. Kobra takes down ten Dracs before he falls, and there’s still no time. Ghoul pushes Jet and the Girl outside in a trade for more time, like somehow he’s the one that can stand again after a kill shot. Jet becomes cover fire because that’s all that is needed anymore. News-A-Go-Go is yelling, and the Doctor’s booming voice just tells her to _go, go, go!_

In the frigid pre-dawn air, the girl returns to the desert. Jet Star dies. It is sealed.

 

The Phoenix Witch sits on the roof of the Trans Am that used to belong to the Fabulous Killjoys. She turns over the yellow and blue mask in her hands. Her heart is heavy, but there’s no more need for them in the desert anymore. Their fate is written and sealed.

The Girl’s is still wide open. She will have to keep an eye on her. The Witch holds the mask up to the stars and knows it will be twelve years before her beloved can join her: the girl needs this mask still.

The Witch flutters into the BLI building behind the dracs sent to sweep up the pile of feathers over the hood of the car. She watches them put the body-that-was-once-Party-Poison in a white body bag and take him to the basement. A SCARECROW officer tries to shoo away the small blackbird, but she just flies out to find the others in the same bags.

She flies back out to the heat of the desert after to unlock the mailbox and carry over those who died. She has been lax in her duties lately, and there is a large group waiting for her.

 

In twelve years, when a child tries to steal Party Poison’s identity, she will unlock the mailbox to a tired and confused Party Poison and lead him back to his family.

But maybe, first, he will stay with her a while, a courier in the desert.  



End file.
